Joan Terrell-Paige

Joan Terrell-Paige was a member of the Jersey City Board of Education. On 17 December 2019, she became embroiled in controversy for strongly anti-Semitic social media posts on Facebook just a week after the 2019 Jersey City shooting, and Governor Phil Murphy and Mayor Steven Fulop called for her immediate resignation.

Biography
Joan Terrell-Paige was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, and she worked at the Lightolier Company at 346 Claremont Avenue before teaching at the Workshop of United Cerebral Palsy in New York City and teaching handicapped adults. Terrell-Paige became involved in politics as an aide to ward councilwoman Melissa Holloway, as a block association community organizer, as President of the Claremont Avenue Neighborhood Organization for 13 years, as producer of a quarterly newsletter distributed to the 80,000 residents of Ward F, as a member of the Jersey City branch of the NAACP, and as a seniors' rights advocate. On 17 December 2019, in the aftermath of the 2019 Jersey City shooting, she wrote on Facebook "Where was all this faith and hope when Black homeowners were threatened, intimidated, and harassed by I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE brutes in the Jewish community?" and accused Jews of threatening to "bring drug dealers and prostitutes to live next door to you" if black homeowners refused to sell their homes." She also claimed that black renters were evicted 30 days after buying their homes by members of the Hasidic community "so that more Jewish people could move in" and suggested that city officials were turning a blind eye to blacks. In response to her remarks, Governor Phil Murphy and Mayor Steven Fulop called for her to resign.